Blackfire
Real Name Komand'r Known Aliases None. First DC Appearance New Teen Titans (Volume #1) #23 (1982) First Story Appearance Black and White Weapons (cartoon) Once used the Jewel of Charta, an alien gemstone that supposely gave Blackfire unlimited power. The Jewel proved breakable though, and if Blackfire is going to unveil any other weapons she has yet to do so. Powers Superhuman strength and the ability to project powerful solar energy blasts like her sister Starfire from her hands and eyes. In the comics Blackfire cannot fly under her own power, though she can in the cartoon. Blackfire is also a highly trained and deadly warrior. Her skills and powers may surpass her sister's, although this fact has yet to be concisely proven. Current Status Active History She may be a villain, and heartless and cruel in it, but when one knows the whole story once can only wonder if Komand'r of Tamaran could have grown up to be anything but. Shakespeare once said 'Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.' And sometimes the opposite is true too. In the comics, Blackfire should have been loved and adored: she was the first princess born to the royal family in over a hundred years. But the Citadel, an alien race at war with Tamaran at the time, cursed the newborn princess by launching an attack on the city of Kysarr, murdering three thousand Tamaranians that the Citadel 'dedicated' to Blackfire. Though the newborn princess was blameless in the attack, the Tamaranian reaction was typically and disgustfully human, as they subconsciously blamed Blackfire for the attack. Perhaps a flaw shared by all sentient minds, but still inexcusable, and the start of Blackfire's fall. The second curse on the Princess was the fact she could not fly: the ability of flight was natural to all Tamaranians, but Blackfire was 'crippled' and hence left earthbound. The combination of this and the previous actions of the Citadel manifested in the minds of Tamaran's populace as hostility and hatred towards Blackfire, blaming her for their own failings and weaknesses in being unable to respond to the attack by the Citadel. As such a mindset would cause, they denied her her birthright and granted it to her younger sister, Koriand'r, who would one day become the hero Starfire. And much like such idiotic thinking produces in fictional worlds like this, no one thought of how this would affect Blackfire. The result was the usual: within Blackfire grew a burning, vicious hatred, spawned from the constant and unjust hatred of others, a festering rage in turn focused on her people, and especially her younger sister Starfire. When King Myand'r sent his daughters to train with the Warlords of Okaara, Blackfire finally snapped and attacked her sister, attempting to kill her. She failed, and was expelled by the Warlords for the attempt. That was the final humiliation Blackfire was willing to endure, and she left her people and joined the Citadel, rapidly rising through the ranks as the Citadel waged war on Tamaran. In a way, its people got exactly what they deserved. Though Starfire was not one of the ones to be blamed for the monster that had been made of Blackfire, but she was perhaps the one who suffered the most, as Blackfire provided great detail on Tamaran's defenses to the Citadel, allowing them to conquer the planet with ease. One of the surrender conditions was Starfire's exile from her home, and to make matters worse, Blackfire promptly enslaved her sister and sold her into 'humilating slavery' (re: sexual slavery in 80's comics terms). Starfire endured who knows what godawful deeds for years before she finally lashed out and killed one of her rapists...at which point Blackfire decide to execute her for her 'crime'. However, fate had other plans, as almost immediately afterward Blackfire and her sister were attacked and kidnapped by another alien race, the Psions. The Psions, a race of sadistic scientists, decided to experiment on the two alien woman's solar absorption abilities to see how much energy their bodies could absorb. Before the experiment could be completed though, Blackfire's Citadel forces attacked the Psions and the process was interrupted: said interrupted process was what ultimately gifted Starfire and Blackfire their energy blast abilities in the comics. Starfire, showing her heart had not hardened like Blackfire's had in the face of pain and suffering, freed her sister after she freed herself: Blackfire rewarded her by blasting her in the face and running off. Starfire got up and fled via space shuttle, eventually ending up on Earth and helping form the second incarnation of the Teen Titans. The feud between the sisters was not yet settled though. First Blackfire seized control of the Citadel, captured Starfire, and attempted to conquer Tamaran and the surrounding star systems: a battle between the two sisters on Tamaran proved inconclusive, though the Titans (with help by the spacefaring hero team the Omega Men) managed to thwart Blackfire's plan. Later, Starfire was called back to Tamaran to try and settle a civil war (with an arranged marriage). Starfire instead found herself in battle with Blackfire again as the latter attempted to take control of the planet (again), and after several more fights, Starfire learned to her shock that the people of Tamaran actually preferred Blackfire's rule to the possible alternatives (or maybe they'd just learned their lesson in what they had made Blackfire via their treatment). Starfire left her planet after that, feeling it was no longer her home, and Blackfire actually proved to be a good queen, ruling with firmness but fairness. In fact, it almost seemed that her long festering psychological wounds were beginning to heal. Life was soon to remind Blackfire it hated her though. The Psions attacked Tamaran and in the end destroyed it, killing many Tamaranians and Blackfire and Starfire's parents. Starfire helped her people settle on a new planet, but soon New Tamaran met a tragic fate as well as a gigantic cosmic being known as a Sun-Eater ravaged the galaxy and destroyed New Tamaran. The incident showed that perhaps Blackfire had not improved as much as one might think, as an alien woman called Dusk attempted to warn the Tamaranians of the coming of the cosmic destroyer, but Blackfire refused to listen, and when Starfire did listen and attempted to help her people escape, Blackfire once again banished her. The end result was New Tamaran being engulfed by the creature, leading to the death of many more Tamaranians and seemingly Blackfire as well. But the spurned queen had come too far to die so easily, and Blackfire returned with the remains of her people, getting mixed up in the Rann/Thanagar War. While she ultimately joined 'the side of the angels', it was only to deal with the big threat facing everything, and during the chaos of the war Blackfire showed she hadn't changed at all at her core as she murdered the alien soldier Hawkwoman in an act of betrayal. With the Infinite Crisis settled, Blackfire is determined to find a new home for what remains of her people again, no matter what she has to do to claim it. Perhaps she may find Earth suitable...and perhaps the deadly sibling rivalry between her and Starfire will enter yet another deadly phase. And with Blackfire's bloodsoaked past, she probably wouldn't have it any other way. At least that's how it goes in the canon DC comics. In the cartoon, things are considerably different (as they tend to be, as one can't include things like 'Starfire was a sex slave' in a cartoon show aimed at kids). In the cartoon, Blackfire is apparently an interstellar criminal (so perhaps her origin isn't that different, though it is said somewhere in fanon sources that instead of being completely unable to fly Blackfire was just an immensely slow learner), and if she had anything to do with the events that landed Starfire on Earth in the cartoon Starfire does not know them judging from the way she greeted Blackfire when she came to visit in the episode 'Sisters'. The addition of events from the Legendverse fanon (such as the fact that the Blacktrinian Empire was either warring with Tamaran at the same time as the Citadel or started warring with Tamaran after Tamaran finished warring with the Citadel...or maybe the Blacktrinian Empire took out the Citadel and took its place warring with Tamaran, details have yet to be revealed) have further obscured things. However, the events of the Legendsverse have heaped more pain and abuse on Blackfire, as the story Black and White altered the show's canon after the events of Sisters: Blackfire was sent to one of the nastiest prisons in the galaxy, a place so wretched and horrid that she lost what mind she had left, breaking out and heading back to Earth, where she attempted a cruel scheme to murder her sister and her new love Robin in revenge for Starfire 'condemning' her to such a terrible place. However, the events of that battle (and those dragged into it) resulted in Blackfire ending up in hands that were perhaps even nastier then hers: the psychotic misogynist Jack Djinn, aka Asphyxiation, whose Grimmer powers nearly crushed Blackfire's throat (and not for any real reason then to do it, at that). Emergency medical attention from the high tech science lab S.T.A.R saved her life, and Blackfire even submitted to a course in Earth therapy afterward, trying to pick up the pieces of her life. Unfortunately, her arrived upon solution was to pick another fight with Starfire, this time in a kind of 'purifying Tamaranian battle ritual' of sorts later in The Epic of Gauntlet. Blackfire seemingly won that fight, and has not been seen since in the Legendsverse. That does not mean she's gone though. Though one can see why Blackfire is so popular for 'redemption stories' in fanfic: her story and history cry out for people to try and fix her, to give her something better then what she got, whether it be through heroism or romance. And I'm not saying it's impossible. Just remember, her name is Blackfire for a reason. "And some have...'greatness'...thrust upon them..."